


Love Me

by FicLogia



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Barista Derek, But like only for a flash, Derek Hale-centric, Derek Makes Coffee, Derek-centric, Dialogue Heavy, I'm not from America, M/M, Other, Road Trips, Self-Discovery, Sorry if the geography is wrong, bear with me, hahaha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:54:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23591176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FicLogia/pseuds/FicLogia
Summary: Five times it was said and left unanswered. One time it didn’t have to be said at all.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Melissa McCall/Sheriff Stilinski
Comments: 11
Kudos: 105





	Love Me

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to KaliopeShipsIt for beta-ing me!

**1 [What The Fuck]**

They come bursting through the door.

“What the fuck, Derek?!” 

“I said I was sorry.”

Derek walks with forced measure, Stiles marching behind him, stomping his feet as he follows closely behind. 

“What the fuck was that!”

“It won’t happen again.” 

“No. No, it will most definitely, absolutely happen again because it’s happened before! You did this with Jane. You did it with Lewis, with _everyone_ I’ve ever dated. You even pulled this shit with Lydia!”

Derek starts going about the room, trying to make himself look busy. 

“Are you even fucking listening?” Stiles yells, grabbing at Derek’s arm. 

Derek shrugs him off. 

“What the hell do you want from me, Derek?!” Stiles exclaims, pulling at his hair in frustration. “What do you want me to do so you’ll leave me and my latest fucking partner the fuck alone!”

There’s a book slammed on the table. Derek takes a sharp turn, chest puffed out with false bravado. 

“Love me,” he answered. Confessed. Demanded. 

Stiles gapes at him. “Wh-“

Derek steps closer, closer, and _closer_ still. 

“Love _me_.” He says again, looking into those amber eyes, trying and failing to hide the tremor, the creeping uncertainty in his voice. “I dare you.” 

Stiles stares right back at him, the first time in a long time. There’s too much silence.

Derek watches, front row seat as shock turns to disbelief to rising, righteous anger. 

“Fuck. You.” Stiles growls right in his face. “Fuck you, Derek!” He yells, emphasizing each word with a shove at Derek’s chest, pushing him farther away. 

When there’s enough distance, Stiles turns to him, ferocious anger and despair in his glare. “Or better yet, just fuck off.” 

Then Stiles storms off. And that’s the last Derek sees of him for...a while. 

\-----

Derek hears Scott and Lydia enter the room. He ignores them in favor of stuffing more clothes in his duffle bag, hoping that would put off the unwanted conversation he’s sure they came to have. 

But Scott is Scott, and silence isn’t going to silence him. 

“You know this isn’t what he meant, right?”

Derek smirks. For all that he talks, it’s hard to guess what Stiles really means on a good day. Much less when addressing something as turbulent, ambiguous, emotional as- whatever the two of them are. So no, Derek doesn’t know that. 

But Derek isn’t doing this for Stiles. 

“You know this is just going to piss him off more.” And that’s Lydia — blunt, efficient, precise. 

Derek spares her a look. Yes, he knows. He’s still leaving anyway. Did he mention he wasn’t doing this for Stiles? He probably should. 

“This isn’t for Stiles anyway.”

\----

Loving Stiles has been...one of the best and worst things Derek ever did in his life. 

Falling for the boy was effortless, as natural as breathing. It helped bring the light snuffed out by the fire back into his life. It helped him find a better anchor. It pushed him in the right direction to find his place in this new, young, ragtag pack. 

Loving the man Stiles grew up to be, that helped him live a life again. It allowed him to regain some semblance of self-worth and want for himself again. 

Maybe too much. 

He doesn’t know when, but somewhere along the lines of loving Stiles and surviving Beacon Hills, he got greedy. 

He thought he was okay, satisfying himself with crumbs. He thought he could take the bits and pieces of affection Stiles spared him every pack meeting, every supernatural crisis, every time he almost died, and...settle. Make it enough. 

He thought he’d be satisfied with just loving Stiles, never asking him to love him in return. 

Then he found himself seeking out those crumbs of affection more and more. He found himself snapping at Lydia for no reason. Staring down a perfectly sweet and likeable brunette Stiles met during sophomore year in college. Being plain rude to some charming, lithe blonde Stiles brought home one thanksgiving. 

He thought he was okay, loving Stiles for nothing in return. Then he found himself hating other people whose only crime was loving Stiles Stilinski just like he did. 

**2 [An Inch and A Mile]**

_5 years ago_

“I dare you!” Stiles hollers, swaying by the breakfast bar of Derek’s kitchen. He was drunk, beyond remembering his actions next morning level of drunk, if Derek was guessing. 

The rest of the pack were just as wasted. But they were busy playing truth or dare out on the balcony, not disturbing Derek who’s playing responsible sober adult reading on the couch. 

He doesn’t know why Stiles decided to come inside or why he’s decided he wanted to play the game with him. “We don’t even have a bottle to spin,” he points out, putting his book down. 

Stiles ignores him in favor of drunkenly stumbling to where he’s sat, tripping over the couch arm, and landing on Derek’s lap in a blur of flailing limbs and sharp elbows. 

“I double dare you, motherfucker!” Stiles yells again once Derek’s got him settled in his arms. Stiles tries to point a finger gun at Derek, making him slip from Derek’s lap down to the seat of the couch, his head coming to rest on Derek’s thigh. 

Lying down, Stiles pauses and looks up at Derek. 

His hand reaches out, finger gun turning to a sudden, startling soft caress on Derek’s cheek. 

“Love me.” Stiles almost whispers, eyes on Derek hazy, terrified but determined. 

Derek’s face goes lax for a split second, mouth falling, speechless at Stiles’ daring. He’s finally doing it, calling out the tension between them, speaking it into reality, bringing it to the world outside of their longing gazes and lingering touches. 

Then, the smell of whiskey registers again. 

Derek schools his features and swallows down the hope that almost bloomed in his chest. This isn’t the right time, nor the place. Not the right Stiles, at least not in the right state of mind. 

He takes Stiles’ hand on his cheek, brings it down, and lets it go. He stuffs a throw pillow under Stiles’ head, grabs the quilt hanging off the back of the couch and drapes it over Stiles’ body. 

“Sleep, Stiles,” he says softly in return. 

Then Derek gets up and he walks up to his bedroom, refusing to look back. 

\-----

_Don’t bother coming back, asshole._

_From: Stiles_

Derek gives the text another glance before throwing his phone on the passenger seat. 

_Yeah, he’s mad._ Just like Lydia said he would be. 

But this was something Derek had to do. Because loving Stiles somehow led to Derek forgetting himself. One way or another, he found a way to turn the one good thing in his life to something unhealthy and twisted, just like he always did. 

Stiles gave him an inch — before, way, way before, 5 years ago before — he passed on it, and now he’s passive-aggressively retaliating because his wolf is feeling territorial of the whole damn Stiles Stilinski mile. 

Derek shakes his head. Honestly, why can’t they just get their shit together? Why can’t _he_? If he just had the right timing, none of this would be happening. Stiles wouldn’t be mad. He wouldn’t be an inadvertent prick. And the pack wouldn’t have to deal with their high school-level antics. 

But that’s what this trip is for. To give the both of them space. And to give him time to hopefully grow up just a little bit more. 

**3 [The First Time]**

He drives without stopping for as long as he can, determined to put as much distance between him and the pissed off Stiles-shaped dilemma he left in Beacon Hills. 

This means his first stop ends up being a loud little food truck in El Paso, New Mexico. He chows down a platter or two of tiny taquitos there, then moves on back to the road. 

He crosses the border to Mexico, and somehow finds his little sister partying it up and getting into petty fights on Independencia Boulevard. 

Cora lets him stay over at her place for a couple of days, but not without clipping him upside the head for being a douchetastic moron to a certain guy who may be questionably criminally talented but is definitely preferable over his list of murderous, psychopathic exes.

His little sister is blunt about her displeasure over his behavior, but gives him a pass, “Considering how fucked up our lives have been. But seriously, Derek, hurt that asshole again and I’ll disown you.”

He gives her a hug and a kiss on the head for the honesty, proud of the simple albeit a little violent normal his sister has managed for herself. Then he leaves a few days later after he walks in on her having a menage-a-trois in her living room. 

He drives back to the states, enjoys a steak or two in Texas. He takes his time driving by corn fields and pastures, enjoying the view of wide, green, empty land and a clear blue sky that he gazes at hoping it could spare a drop of clarity for his mind. 

Eventually, he finds himself in a run-down pub somewhere in Louisiana. It’s owned by a quiet, old vampire who likes being dominated while drinking his meal, or so the chatty succubus bartender generously tells him. 

She’s nice, the succubus. She has chestnut hair and darker than black raven eyes, and Derek really appreciates that she doesn’t try to trick him or hypnotize him into sleeping with her. 

She does use her charms, but only to talk his ear off. 

“Well, you have to admit. Declaring your love for the first time ever in the middle of a fight, and after he just brought his latest boo to the hometown to meet the folks-slash-pack isn’t really the most-”

“It wasn’t the first time.”

“-ideal confession in the history of confessions of, honey. Excuse me, what did you say?”

Derek fights a smile at the sound of familiar rambling. It would almost be perfect if only the voice behind the tumble of words were an octave lower, and the lips speaking them were a bit poutier, fuller, more perfect with a tantalizing cupid’s bow arch. His smile sombers before he repeats himself.

“It wasn’t the first time.”

\-----

There was a witch and she wanted Derek’s heart. Literally. 

She kidnaps him and brings him to an abandoned warehouse in the middle of nowhere. 

The pack finds him, but with a hole, a literal gaping hole already on his chest. 

The ‘wolves and Lydia get busy trying to defeat the army of undead somethings that the witch has summoned using Derek’s still pulsating heart. Meanwhile, Stiles grabs him and drags him to hide behind a wall. It was bad. 

Stiles is holding him up against his chest, shielding him from the fight going on on the other side of the meter-wide, knee-high block of cement they’ve found as their line of defense. Derek can feel Stiles’ hands shaking, his consciousness slipping.

He looks down at Stiles’ hand bathed in red, trying to cover the gore that is his chest. He looks back up, resting his head on Stiles’ neck. Stiles isn’t looking at him but all his attention is at him at the same time. His jaw is clenched, locked in that way that it gets when Stiles is feeling fiercely protective. 

Derek is bleeding and his heart is four feet away from him, but he’s not afraid because Stiles has him. Stiles will keep him safe. Stiles has always kept him safe. 

_God,_ Derek thinks. _I want to tell him._

Derek wants to tell Stiles before he dies, because he can see his heart slow its beating, can feel the fatigue spreading down to his arms all the way to his toes. 

He wants to tell Stiles how much he loves him. Not even for him, but for Stiles. He wants Stiles to know that he is loved. He wants Stiles to know that he affects someone so greatly that they’ve captured them heart, mind, and soul. He wants Stiles to realize how valuable he is, how appreciated he is all because he was himself. 

He pictures it, placing his hand on top of Stiles’, saying his name. He imagines those amber eyes looking at him, the two of them locking gazes. He imagines watching Stiles’ face as he says the words. 

_I love you._ He would force the words out, choke it through the blood in his throat, past his body gasping for air. _I love you._

Then, the greedy part of him that he always failed to curb when it came to matters that involved Stiles, that part of him would try to push it, ask for more. 

_Could you pretend_ , he’d plead, _Lie to me_ , _you don’t have to mean it_.

 _Pretend to what?_ He can almost hear Stiles answer. 

_Love me,_ he would beg, desperately, pathetically. _Lovemelovemeloveme_

Thank god unconsciousness takes him. 

Later on. After the chaos, after the pack’s defeated the witch and her undead army, and Derek’s been pulled from the brink of death yet again, his near death confession and supplication still thankfully left unsaid. Later, after all of that, when Derek’s got his heart back in his chest, he sneaks into Stiles’ bedroom. 

It’s just to check on him, to say a quick thanks. 

When Derek slides that familiar window open, Stiles is already fast asleep on his bed, his heartbeat steady, his breathing deep and even. Derek’s eyes fall on those lush lashes brushing against those porcelain cheeks, on those perfect, pouty lips pursing and smacking as Stiles dreams. Derek is tempted. Derek gives. 

He approaches Stiles’ sleeping form slowly, quietly. He wants to touch, wants to lean over and give the boy a kiss, just a quick peck on those plush lips, nothing more. But he doesn’t. 

He settles for a whispered thank you. Tries to leave it at that. Can’t. So he stays a second longer, kneeling by Stiles’ bedside, watching him sleeping. Then Derek whispers the words he was literally dying to say. 

_I love you._ Smooth and easy. Quick as a breath. Barely heard by the wind. But there. 

Finally, it’s out there. Said and done. Alright, Derek shall move on. 

He stands, walks back to the window. Just as he’s to reach the window sill, his eye glimpses one last look at Stiles from the mirror on his right. When he looks, he stops. 

With the moonlight catching on Stiles’ face, Derek can see Stiles is awake. His eyes are open, blinking at him slowly as if still waking from a dream. 

Derek’s heart thumps harder in his chest, he fears the worst hopes for the best. But Stiles blinks again, looks at him, and...nothing. He says nothing. 

Derek confessed, and Stiles said nothing. 

So Derek leaves through the window and leaves things at that. Nothing.

\-----

Derek picks up a therapist. Again, literally.

The man reminds him of Peter, before the fire happened. 

He finds him on the side of the road. His name is Theodore, Teddy for short. Teddy hitchhikes with him all the way to New York. 

His first bit of advice? “Your car could use some Glade.”

**4 [Coming and Going]**

He stays in New York for a while, finds his and Laura’s old two-bedroom apartment and tries to breathe through the endless memories and reminders of his sister there. 

He finds a favorite cafe place to visit every morning, a nearby bodega to frequent, and once a week he walks the few blocks it takes to get to Teddy’s office. 

After his first few official sessions with the odd hitchhiking psychiatrist, Derek picks up a hobby. Something besides reading, as Teddy insisted. 

He makes friends with the old owner of his regular cafe, Berta, and asks her if she needs help with anything. Berta doesn’t have a husband or children, and she’s very happy to say so. 

It just so happens that she needed an extra pair of hands behind the counter. That’s how Derek ends up becoming a barista. 

Coffee is simple. Coffee is easy, straightforward. Coffee has always been there in his life, waking him up, keeping him grounded to the real world. Coffee reminds him of Stiles. 

And then one day, coffee brings him back to Stiles. 

\-----

It’s a Sunday and Derek is covering for Berta while she goes to mass. Morning rush, which usually just means ten people in the cafe between six to eight a.m., just finished and Derek is busying himself with cleaning up behind the counter. 

He’s not paying attention to anything really, happy to let his mind float as he wipes and sprays and sheens. Then he hears it, that laugh. 

He whips his head towards the sound, and there Stiles is. Across the street, healthy, happy, laughing with a couple of strangers Derek’s never seen before in his life. 

He watches for a little longer and that’s when he notices, Stiles is holding the hand of one of the people he’s with. And he’s standing too close for them to be anything other than intimate. 

_Ah, there it is._ That familiar twinge, that ache from watching Stiles be made happy by someone else. It’s still there, but Derek...he doesn’t feel the need to do anything about it anymore. Watching Stiles...he’s just happy, to see Stiles happy. 

There’s still a part of him, of course, that wishes it could be him. That he could be right for Stiles. But it’s overwhelmed now by the genuine satisfaction that courses through his veins from seeing Stiles laugh so carefree. 

Derek sees Stiles about to turn towards his direction, towards his cafe. Not his proudest moment, Derek ducks down and hides. 

\-----

Despite being genuinely happy for Stiles, the ache from seeing Stiles hold hands with someone else is still enough to unsettle Derek. 

He leaves New York. 

He hugs Berta goodbye. He makes an online therapy arrangement with Teddy. He locks the door to his and Laura’s second home, and bids his sister goodbye a second time. 

\-----

He takes another long drive, passing through cities and small towns and stopping whenever hunger calls or something catches his eye. 

He thinks about Stiles a lot, about being happy that he’s happy, about being hurt that it’s by someone else. He thinks about the pull that he’s been feeling, to go back. He doesn’t know what to do with any of it. So. 

He goes to the grand canyon. Just because he can. 

He’s sitting on the roof of the camaro when his phone rings and Stiles’ name flashes on his screen. 

Derek picks up right away worried that it’s an emergency. Stiles is quick to reassure him that everything’s fine. 

“I got your number from Scott. I just...wanted to say hello.” 

Derek smiles, basking in the sound of Stiles’ voice. He misses it, he wants to say that he misses it, misses hearing Stiles talk. But he doesn’t want to make the call awkward. So instead he says, “Hello.” 

Stiles barks out a laugh, calls him an asshole like he used to. And then, as an unexpected birthday present, Derek spends about an hour watching the sun set on the grand canyon while listening to Stiles talk about anything and everything under the sun. 

Scott finally passed his licensure exam. Lydia just graduated with a new degree, this time in Stanford. His dad and Melissa just celebrated their first monthsary, Scott and Stiles made a bigger deal out of it than the actual couple. John “hated” the surprise dinner party they put together and threatened to disown them both. Isaac visited a month ago with Jackson and Ethan, the three of them haven’t left Beacon Hills since. They’ve been asking for him. 

It’s been more than a year since he left Beacon Hills, he’s missed a lot. 

Just as the last of daylight kisses the horizon, Stiles says, “I met someone.”

Derek has to stop himself from replying _I know_. He takes a deep breath. “Oh.”

“Oh?”

He doesn’t know what Stiles wants him to say. “I mean, do they make you happy?” _You looked happy._

“I...He’s...He makes me laugh.”

“That’s good.”

“It was.”

“Was?”

“We broke up,” Stiles blurts out, “I let him go. He wasn’t…,” Stiles exhales, like he’s trying to find the right word. “He was fun and light and easy. He even got along with the pack, Dad liked him. But he wasn’t- _right,_ I guess is the word I’m looking for. You know what I mean?”

Derek thinks about the men and women he’s met along the way, the ones who propositioned him and then some. “Yeah.” He knows what Stiles means.

“Plus he wanted to stay in New York and I wanted to go back to Beacon Hills. So.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah. But that’s over now.” 

_Good_ , Derek doesn’t say. 

Stiles grows quiet. 

Derek gives him a moment, something about the silence over the line telling him to wait, to be patient. 

The sun sets. The moon rises. 

“Do you know how to do it yet?”

“Hm?”

He hears Stiles take a deep breath. “Love me.” 

Derek stays quiet, taking a moment to look up at the moon shining over the canyon. 

“I’ll see you soon, Stiles.”

**5 [All It Takes]**

It’s a few months later when Stiles calls again. 

He’s staying with an odd pack of werecoyotes who live near the Mojave National Preserve when Stiles’ name flashes on his screen. 

“Everyone’s fine. Nothing’s wrong. Beacon Hills is still in one piece.” Stiles rambles in lieu of a greeting. 

“Good to know. I’m okay too, thanks for asking,” Derek huffs.

“Oh, I know.”

Derek raises his brow at that. “And how would you know?” The Tsosie pack is a small and private one, happy to keep to themselves. They wouldn’t have even entertained Derek if Laura hadn’t been close friends with their alpha’s daughter. 

“I have my sources,” Stiles says mysteriously. Derek can hear the grin in his voice. 

“Uh huh.” He stops to sit on a dusty boulder, looking out into the clear sky and the endless desert. He was out for his daily afternoon walk, just to get some space, some breathing room from a pack of friendly strangers. “Are you okay?”

“Me? Yeah, I just told you, we’re all good here.” Derek nods, Stiles isn’t lying. “Why’d you ask?”

“I don’t know. Why’d you call?” _Are we okay now?_

“Well, I was having dinner with my dad, and you know how the old man’s gotten attached to you.” Yes, Derek’s attached to John too. He was a good friend and a comforting father figure, even after Derek left. “And...he just wanted to check on you.

Derek smiles knowingly. “Your dad wanted to check on me.”

“Yup,” Stiles quickly replies, popping the ‘p’. 

John could have called him, but he’ll play along. “Like I said. I’m doing fine.”

“Good, great. That’s great. I will...relay that to my dad who is very concerned. About you. And your welfare.”

“Okay. Anything else your dad wants to know? Or say?”

“Oh...nothing much. Just that,” he hears Stiles take a deep breath, “it’s been a, um, a while, you know.”

 _17 months and 4 days,_ Derek recalls. 

“17 months and 4 days,” Stiles says. 

Ah, so Stiles has been counting too. Derek nods even though he knows Stiles can’t see.

“The pack misses you.”

Derek smiles again. “The pack, huh.”

“Yeah,” this time he can hear Stiles’ knowing and caught smile, “The pack.”

“Anything else?”

“The pack also worries about you, everyday. And the pack also kinda wishes you’d come back already. Soon. Sooner than soon.”

Derek hums. He’s been wishing the same thing too, harder and harder everyday. But the fear, the self-doubt are still winning him over most mornings. 

“I…,” Stiles starts. Stops. Tries again. “The pack...and I have also been wondering. If you, uh,” He can hear Stiles swallowing hard on the other end of the line. “If you…”

“If I...”

“It’s been more than a year now, and you’ve gone so far.” 

“Yes?”

“Are you...are you ready now? Do you think you can do it right now?”

“Do what, Stiles?”

“Love me.” _Come home._

Derek closes his eyes against the hot desert breeze. Fear and self-doubt can suck it today. He smiles, sure and calm and waiting for this. _Yes._

**+1 [After I Do]**

Dating for four years, engaged for one. Finally, _finally_ after waiting for fucking ever, going through a couple of soul searching journeys, and more than a few dozen life affirming sex, Stiles Stilinski is finally married to one Derek Hale and is now officially Stiles Stilinski-Hale. 

He all but drags Derek from the reception hall after everything in Lydia’s program has been ticked off, and now they’re finally alone. In their new home. On their wedding bed. 

Derek is...gorgeous doesn’t quite do him justice. _But by god will I try, to do him justice. So much justice._

Stiles slips and trips while trying to remove his pants, so taken by the sight of Derek on their bed, naked, legs splayed, laid bare all for him. 

Stiles gets up and throws his shirt somewhere, far away, off of him, he doesn’t care. He’s not going to waste a second more. 

He _tries_ to crawl sexily towards Derek, but his wedding band (He has a wedding band! ‘Cause he’s married! To Derek freaking Hale!) gets caught on a lose thread or something, and he ends up face planting on their sheets. 

He’d feel humiliated if not for the light laughter his little stunt gets from Derek. God, he’s going to make Derek laugh _forever_. 

Said wolf takes pity on him and pulls him up to hover over him, Stiles ending up caging Derek with his arms on either side of his head. 

They stare at each other for a second, goofy grins on both their faces. Derek reaches up a hand and cups his cheek. He flashes those eyes. 

_Fuck._ Stiles' mind helpfully supplies. 

Derek leans up, gives a quick but sweet kiss. Then he leans back down, a familiar question in those hazel eyes. 

_Love me?_

And by god, will Stiles ever. 

  
  



End file.
